


The Landing

by A_Candle_For_Sherlock



Series: What Kills You Is The Landing [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Episode: s03e01 The Empty Hearse, F/M, Forgiveness, Grief/Mourning, Internal Monologue, Johnlock Roulette, M/M, TJLC | The Johnlock Conspiracy, The Empty Hearse Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-03 23:08:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6630778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Candle_For_Sherlock/pseuds/A_Candle_For_Sherlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not the fall that kills you. It's the landing.</p><p>The narrative voice is Sherlock's, and he's right, actually--sentiment does muddle his thinking. So he's not the most objective narrator.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Night

**Author's Note:**

> [The Empty Hearse transcription used: http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/64080.html]

The fridge hummed softly in the quiet. The glow of the streetlamps filtered through the drawn curtains. The ashes of the last fire he and John had kindled, two years before, lay in the hearth.

Sherlock stood in the darkness of the flat and breathed, and breathed.

He moved to where his violin lay waiting, not ready to play, just needing to hold it. He settled slowly into his chair with it. Looked across at John's empty chair with the squashy Union Jack pillow.

Everything looked the same. Nothing was the same.

John had attacked him. John had been furious. He'd made his way through hell and pulled off a resurrection and John had not been glad to see him. He'd _left_ him. Anyone could observe those things. Observation was not the problem, understanding was. He was having a hard time grasping the obvious, for once. _Sentiment,_ he thought, _hindering the surrender to clarity._ He sensed the reasonable deduction to be made from John's behavior, but he couldn't face it.

The work, the thing that made John come alive, their work, the danger and the joy of it--the one thing he could give John, that had always drawn him in and kept him near --he'd offered it to John again, eagerly, the _everything we were together_ , the plot Mycroft had handed him to unravel, _the two of us against the rest of the world,_ and--John had grabbed him by the shoulders, slammed his head into Sherlock's face and made him bleed.

He'd tried.

He'd tried everything he could think of to help John understand. John used to love it when he explained what he saw; John wanted to be included in things. He'd made that clear long ago. Sherlock had tried telling him just how it had all happened on the roof, every point of his deductions regarding possible daring escapes and John had been insulted. Hadn't cared to know. _I don't care how. I want to know why._

 _Why?_ John had said in a deadly quiet voice, and suddenly Moriarty's name was not an adequate answer, in the face of John's grief. It had hurt him badly to leave John. Somehow he'd underestimated John's corresponding pain.

He'd thought a silly disguise would soften his entrance. Before, John had loved it when Sherlock was being silly. There was the photo of Sherlock in _that hat_ he wouldn't take off the blog. His joyous response to the sight of Sherlock wrapped in a sheet in Buckingham Palace, to the gift of a stolen ashtray. To the end of their first chase. "That was the most ridiculous thing I've ever done," he'd gasped. Sherlock was used to making people angry, or frightened. He was fascinated to find he could make John happy. That night, catching up to their quarry, Sherlock had improvised; flung open the cab door and claimed they were the police. Flashed the stolen badge in the American's face. "Welcome to London," he'd said helplessly when he realized the man was just a tourist, and they ducked away and then John began to laugh. It had been a revelation.

Sherlock had done that to him. Brought his radiance to the surface, pulled back the layers of war-weariness and loss and loneliness and suddenly John was shining, fully there.

He had memorized John's laughter. Reveled in it. Carried it with him these last two years, through silence and horror and pain. Two years without John. He'd thought he would see him laugh tonight. He'd thought John would adore the absurdity of Sherlock disguised as a French waiter with a drawn-on mustache. He'd expected joy. Relief. Shock, yes, but not sorrow, and not rage.

John couldn't stand being left. He remembered that now, the moments when he'd dive into an open window or a cab or swing up a fire escape and John would be left behind shouting for him. John hated that. He'd never known how _much_ he hated that, because he'd never left John out of something like this.

Telling him Mycroft had chosen the lie, not him, only made it worse, because Mycroft had known and John hadn't.

Telling him he'd thought about him constantly hadn't even seemed to register.

Telling him he needed him had made John assault him.

 

Of course he'd known John would miss him. He'd be sad for a time, possibly lonely, certainly bored without Sherlock bringing mayhem and madness around. But John was brave, and good, and easy to love. He'd never thought John would be really alone without him. Never imagined John could look so alone as he did when glanced up to find Sherlock standing there and all of the light faded from his face.

He'd watched helplessly as John gasped for air, bent over in grief. When John slammed his fist into the table Sherlock felt it in his chest.

Even then he'd tried again to make him laugh. Always, before, some nonsense, a joke, a bit of teasing had made things all right when they felt too much. He'd thought John would remember.

Sherlock was a fighter but he'd let John take him to the ground without resistance. The impact burned through the damage in his shoulders and contracted the bruised muscles along his spine and he recognized distantly that he'd begun bleeding a little, again. But he was overwhelmed by John, his darkened, furious, tear-filled eyes, his weight pinning Sherlock's hips to the floor, his hands pressing with the force of all the pain Sherlock had caused him toward Sherlock's exposed throat. He'd wrapped his own hands around John's, and let him shout.

 

He was going to have to disinfect his bloodied back. He had Mycroft's terror cell to deal with; he had to stay functional. Sherlock stood, leaving the violin in the chair. Pulled his scarf off, dropped it onto the table. Shifted the weight of the Belstaff off his arms, one, the other, slowly. Let it settle to the floor.

Removed his jacket carefully. Unbuttoned the shirt Mycroft had brought for him, hours ago.

He'd known at a place like that, John had to be on a date. He was pretty sure he could outshine her, whoever she was.

He hadn't expected John to look that wonderful in the low light, even with the ridiculous mustache.

He hadn't expected he'd feel short of air, seeing him. ( _Thirty steps away, and two years, and continents, and one supposed suicide between us_.)

He hadn't expected the love on John's face when he'd looked at her. He hadn't looked like that with any of the others. She'd made him happy.

He hadn't really looked at the woman, not until after John was standing on the sidewalk calling, "Mary." Leaving Sherlock. Absurdly, she'd offered to talk John out of his rage. Smiled at him, as though he hadn't wrecked John. As though she liked him. He'd observed her properly then, tucked away her information for later. Mary. The woman John had chosen.

Pain prickled through his shoulders as he pulled his shirt away from where it had bonded to the broken skin. Looked over the dark stains on the fabric, assessed the state of his wounds by feel. Old scars ached, but only the ones from just before the rescue were new enough to have broken open--the web of skin and tissue and veins running through his back still tenuous enough to rip gracelessly apart under the shock of John shoving him violently back, John pressing him into the ground and (no) that was enough thinking about that. John. John was the point. John hadn't been all right without him. John had grieved him.

_Two years, Sherlock. How could you do that to me?_

He had hurt John, badly, and John couldn't forgive him.

How had he failed to anticipate this?


	2. Sunshine and Wildfire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He couldn't imagine what he'd do, being followed around crime scenes by the ghost of John, whispering, "Amazing," while the real John Watson sat in his flat despising him.

Sherlock sat with his brother and thought suddenly, _He's lonely._

_I still have Mrs. Hudson. And Molly. And Lestrade. Who does he have? Who could he even have talked to while I was gone?_

_He's actually left the Diogenes Club and the affairs of the nation to play Operation in my flat because I'm back again, and even though he can't stand me, I am all he has. He needs me. He's always needed me. He'd never admit it, but we both know. We were alone together for so long._

_I wonder if he's even tried once to make a friend._

_I wonder if he knows it's possible someone might like him._

_I hadn't known they might, until John did._

 

Lestrade had a case for him. Sherlock rang Molly.

"Are you okay?" she'd asked him tentatively, years ago, before it all happened. "If there's anything you need, you can have me."

He wasn't okay. Maybe the offer still stood. He couldn't go back to the work on his own. He couldn't imagine what he'd do, being followed around crime scenes by the ghost of John, whispering, _Amazing,_ while the real John Watson sat in his flat despising him.

Molly liked him, at least. He was vividly aware of how rare a trait that was.

 

As it turned out, John's imagined voice haunted him at the scene anyway, but instead of _Amazing!_ and _Fantastic!_ it stayed true to its source's current mood and hissed the most embarrassing things, all the worst things John had said or might say. _You forgot to turn your collar up,_ it taunted as he left and he felt bizarrely bereft.

He had to get his mind under control. This was absurd. Lestrade was concerned by his behavior, Molly a bit hurt. It really wasn't fair to her. He knew she'd loved him. Didn't know why, but that was the surprising strength of her. Somehow even after John Watson, who he'd do anything for, had given up on him, Molly Hooper, who he'd done nothing for, went on caring all the same. Though he hadn't made her suffer the way he'd hurt John. And he'd never promised her anything, while he'd made it clear to John by every means short of actual speech that he would always come for him.

Maybe that was the problem--the omission of actual speech. In that case, the chance of their coming to an understanding was slim. Neither he nor John were practiced in the verbal expression of emotion. He only caught glimpses of the depths of feeling in John--mostly when someone had a gun to his head.

He'd mistrusted sentiment for so long. He mistrusted it still, given the havoc it was currently wreaking on his mental state. But the reality was that sentiment had saved his life. Molly's affection had prompted her offer of help and assured his survival. Mycroft's protective urge had brought him home, though he'd let Sherlock suffer first.

Molly and Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson's joy at seeing him had softened the impact of the night before. He knew the danger he'd have been in if he hadn't had others who needed to see him alive, and whole, after John had left him.

For that matter, what he felt toward John, as much of a distraction and a weakness as it was now, had saved him too. He'd wanted John near from the start, even before he'd known. Then John had watched him work and said he was _amazing, brilliant, extraordinary_. At the end of their first night John shot a man who meant to murder Sherlock. Looking down into John's steady eyes, afterward, Sherlock had understood suddenly that he wasn't alone any more.

He might have denied his heart was involved, if anyone had asked, until John launched himself at Moriarty, ready to die so that Sherlock could go on living. Then he'd understood, and he knew John knew it, too: He belonged with John. John belonged with him.

He'd thought that what they'd found was enough. More than he could have hoped for.

Of course Irene Adler hadn't thought so. The Woman. She'd always said she knew what people liked. "Somebody loves you," she'd smirked, meaning John. "Are you feeling exposed?" she'd asked John, amused at his shock. While Sherlock tried to stay ahead of her and John got increasingly restless, she'd kept baiting them--that day, and for months after, with text after text after text, while John raised his eyebrows and Sherlock couldn't look at him. He was torn between embarrassment (that John could think he _wanted_ this from her) and pleasure (that it bothered John so much). Sherlock stayed silent when people thought they were together; it was an honor that anyone thought John Watson might choose him, want him. But this was even better: somehow, she'd made John jealous over him. "Fifty-seven of those, that I've heard," John had mused when she messaged Sherlock during the Christmas party, and as distracted as Sherlock was just then, he couldn't help but enjoy the revelation that he'd kept exact track of her texts. For _months._

"Thrilling that you've been counting," he'd murmured and John had shut up quickly.

The day she came back, Sherlock had quietly tailed John and heard him shouting at her about the flirting. He'd made it clearer than he'd probably meant to that if she'd hurt Sherlock, it would hurt him too, and if she'd pleased Sherlock that might even be worse. Irene had been delighted. "Are you jealous?" she'd smiled.

John hadn't answered that. Instead he'd said, as always, "We're not a couple."

But Irene had dismissed that out of hand. "Yes, you are."

 _We are?_ he'd thought. _I thought we were friends. But I've never had friends; I wouldn't know if this is--something more than that._

John had frozen. "I'm not gay." _  
_

"Well, I am," she'd answered just as clearly. "Look at us both."

John had stood still for a long moment and then he'd given the saddest small laugh. Everything had faded away around Sherlock then, while his mind spun through every possible iteration of meaning for that statement and that sorry laugh.

Her text alert had brought him back to himself. He turned on his heel and strode out.

They wanted him. They hadn't expected to.

Both of them wanted him.

Both of them wanted him?

Wanted him _how?_

 

Later John had asked how Sherlock felt about Irene's return, and he'd said nothing. What could he say without exposing sentiments that would embarrass them both? _She's fascinating. Incredibly intelligent, a worthy opponent. She's as lonely as I am, and as unlikely to admit it; and she likes me, even though she sees right through me as no one ever has, not even you. But she's manipulative and dangerous. Not real. You are real. You're better for me. You make me better._

John had accepted Sherlock's silence. He'd never asked about what else Sherlock had heard.

He'd never said, _Are we a couple, then?_

He'd never said, _I want you._

He'd never said, _What do you want?_

 

What did he want? Not love, not the way Irene demanded and suffered it. He supposed she'd regretted loving him in the end. Love was the most dangerously irrational outcome of humanity's absurd internal chemistry. Love undid every reasonable principle of the mind and centered one's whole existence around someone else's--an intolerable risk. Body to body, mind to mind, people because obsessed. Absorbed. Their greater goals fell away as their lesser instincts drew them toward inevitable heartbreak. Love was the most ephemeral of all the pointless bonds of sentiment he'd observed.

That was irrelevant, anyway. Since John had decided that he was not gay, it couldn't be love he that wanted from Sherlock, in spite of the hunger Sherlock saw in his face sometimes when their eyes met and John grew so still. John would never let that become something spoken, something real.

So what did he want?

Baskerville had made things clearer than Sherlock would have preferred about what he needed from John. Dependence entailed risk, vulnerability, weakness. But when he'd snarled at John out of his fear and confusion, "I don't have friends," and then saw John pull away from him, and stay away, reality hit hard.

He needed John.

He needed John near him.

He needed John's happiness. When John was grieved he grieved too.

He needed John's joy in the work. What had been simple deductions of fact when he worked alone, thoughts flickering like lightning through his brain--a flash of brilliance and then nothing, just the rumble of the conclusion--had become something else entirely in the presence of John's astonishment. The ideas as they came to him now were sunshine and wildfire. They filled the air between them with light. The radiance John created just by his presence steadily infused the days, the work, his thoughts, so that the darkness in his mind grew less and less.

He needed John to understand how he needed him.

He needed John to know there was no one but him.

He searched for words. Somehow he managed to say enough that John understood him, in spite of his ineptitude in matters of feeling. It had embarrassed John, but it had made things all right again. They'd gone on from there--he thought, better than before. He thought they'd been happy. He hadn't been sure what they were anymore. Friends, clearly. Also, if they believed Irene, a couple, whatever that meant. Not how others thought they were. But _something._

"You and John Watson--just platonic, then?" Kitty Riley had said and he hadn't known how to answer her.

"We've got to be more careful," John had told him. _Everyone can see it._

"Take my hand," Sherlock had demanded as they ran, their last night together, and John had, instantly.

On the roof they'd reached out those hands toward one another as if they could somehow pull each other back from what was happening. He hadn't had words for what he was about to lose. But it had been something. Both of them knew it.

How could John not want that back?


	3. The Glow of the Flames

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary said firmly to the emergency personnel, "That's my fiance. He's suffered smoke inhalation and I think he's been drugged as well."

He'd always believed that sentiment muddled the mind, slowed the progression of rational thought; obscured motives, making reasonable choices impossible. He'd seen that demonstrated over and over in clients, classmates, ordinary people, in every painfully dull variation possible to humanity. _Feeling_ inevitably led to _not thinking._

So he was staggered by the terrible clarity he experienced when Mary read out the warning text she'd just received: "Save...John...Watson."

_John._

The emotional response flooding his consciousness was incredible. Even the worst moments on the roof as he'd lied to John and prepared to leave him didn't compare. But his reasoning, far from being muddled by the explosive chemical surges of fear and longing in his mind, was rapid and clear and exquisitely focused. _John's been taken. She said it's a skip code. Saint James the Less. That's the church. He's there.  
_

_I can't lose him. Not again, not now.  
_

They ran together into the street. The choice of the motorcycle, the recalculation of traffic flow and alternative routes and the distance remaining between him and John (dying) (no) happened almost without his volition, a rush of certainty he rarely experienced even at his best. He was always guessing, even when he claimed to know, but this was a new level of cognitive function, this was instinct and intelligence, this was rage and need.

As he saw the crowds in the churchyard, recognized the enormous shadowed shape of the wood heaped under the Guy, a sudden memory shook him.

_I will burn the heart out of you._

Impossible. Moriarty was _dead._ But then what was this for?

Fire exploded up through the wood and he was off the bike and moving across the yard at a pace that felt obscenely slow _(standard adrenal crisis response altering the perception of time)_ even as he saw the people scattering out of his path, heard his own broken voice roaring, "Move, move!" and then " _John!"_ Then he was reaching into the fire, staggering as the heat hit him, throwing aside the weight of the wood, praying _John, John, John,_ and then hearing a groan through the rush and crackle of the flames.

His hands found John. _Please._

He was pulling John out of the devouring light, _You can't have him, he is mine,_ back to safety. 

"John?" he asked, patting his cheek to bring him back to consciousness. "John," and the dark eyes fluttered open. "John," he reassured him and his hand stilled on the side of John's warm, alive, bloodied, beautiful face.

He slid his fingers to John's pulse point, bent his head to listen to John's breathing, while John blinked, gaze wavering and refocusing, clearly trying to understand what was happening (doped, why?) as Mary pulled out her mobile to dial 999, as the sirens screamed their approach. He heard Mary say firmly to the emergency personnel, "That's my fiance. He's suffered smoke inhalation and possible burns and I think he's been drugged as well."

It wasn't until John was carried into the ambulance and Mary went in after him without hesitation and the vehicle began to move away that he understood they were taking John away from him again and he had no right to follow.

He rode the borrowed motorcycle back to Baker Street. Called the owner, offered his thanks. Walked slowly up the seventeen steps to the empty flat. Turned on every light he could find. In the stillness, he lifted his violin and played to the movement of the dust in the air and the sight of John's red chair.

When Mary's text came at last, _All right now. He's resting,_ he put the instrument down and went to bed.

In his dreams he rode through endless city streets toward the smoke billowing out of the churchyard, the glow of the flames. But the bike moved slower and slower in spite of him, a useless toy winding down. He dragged himself off it and then he was running, stumbling as the stench of burning flesh hit him. John lay dark and still in front of a roaring bonfire, a gingerbread man burnt to a crisp. The Guy jumped down from the pyre to stand over John's body and slowly grinned. "I still owe you, Sherlock. You survived the fall. Well done, my dear. But we both know it's not the fall that kills you. It's the _landing_."

He woke gasping. Long moments passed as he struggled to breathe, to reintegrate his senses with his returning consciousness. He took in the quiet room (home) (just a dream), the scent of smoke surrounding him in his bed (didn't shower, it's in my hair). He was unable to see clearly. His eyes were aching, overflowing. _Weeping._ He tried to blink the tears away, but they kept coming. _I need to see John. No. Mary is with him. He doesn't want me there. He's fine, she said he's fine now. Why am I weeping?_

Obvious. An involuntary physical response to the grief experienced by the dream self. The subconscious working to assimilate the night's trauma. _Focus. Stop this, now.  
_

_John's safe. It was a dream._


	4. The Cold, Gray Light of Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His lip was bare, the ridiculous mustache gone, his small, wry mouth visible again. He'd shaved his mustache off for Sherlock. Surely that was hopeful, given that he'd knocked Sherlock flat for teasing him about it. Well. Not just for that.

He hadn't known John would come back.

He'd showered and shaved in the cold gray light of dawn, gotten properly dressed and gone out. Raided four different shops for rare maps of the Underground, and made his way home unseeing, running over the case in his mind while a low vibration of dread ran underneath his conscious thoughts. _I've been back two days, and John's already been further damaged emotionally by my idiocy, and then been kidnapped and nearly burnt up, presumably also because of me. He probably wishes I'd stayed dead._ He'd stared uselessly at the web of spies and scoundrels pinned on the wall of the flat for twenty minutes, then spread out his maps. The monotony of trying and failing entirely to form any kind of theory about the missing Tube compartment was finally broken by the inevitable (since he'd returned from two years being dead), but unprecedented event of his parents stopping in for a visit. When he'd refused to leave London, they'd insisted they come.

They were exactly the same as they'd always been. They'd managed to keep talking in exquisite detail for two hours about nothing whatsoever. (What did he want them to say? "How was it being tortured in Serbia, dear?") It had been so long since they'd asked him about anything at all that mattered (since he'd stopped answering. Since Redbeard) (no). Sherlock had been containing himself, barely, while they went on about a lost lottery ticket and their attempts at London tourism, and then suddenly John Watson was there in the door of the flat, not burnt up, not gone, not glaring at Sherlock, not (apparently) preparing to assault him again, just looking unsure. "Sorry, you're busy," was all he said. 

"No," Sherlock shot back immediately, _no, stay_. Then he was pushing his parents out the door while Dad told him to call and Mummy fussed and John stood with his back to them, carefully not watching. He'd recognized Sherlock's embarrassment, then. Had he always been that observant, that protective of Sherlock? What else had he not understood about John? Sherlock quivered with impatience as Mummy went on being sentimental (this was infuriating, she was being deliberately obtuse, but he promised to call her anyway because he owed her that, at least), telling John silently, _Stay._

John stayed. He stood at the window watching Sherlock's parents off and Sherlock waited, aware of the rapidity of his heartbeat, the oxygen hunger that made him half-believe he couldn't breathe (primal fear response, preparing for battle or flight). Then, unexpectedly, John was laughing a bit, joking about the Holmes parents' inexplicable ordinariness. And his lip was bare, the ridiculous mustache gone, his small, wry mouth visible again. Surely that was hopeful, given that he'd knocked Sherlock down that first night for teasing him about it. Well. Not just for that.

For a moment everything was almost all right.

Then, "Did they know too?" John asked, and "So _that's_ why they didn't come to the funeral," with that hardness in his voice, and suddenly Sherlock was furious. He'd gone through hell and back for John, and he was right there in front of him, not gone anymore, and this was all so _unnecessary_. Sherlock found himself snarling, "Sorry! Sorry, again!" But John didn't even look angry, just tired, and Sherlock could see all the days and months he'd left him alone in the lonely lines of his mouth, the darkness in his eyes. Sherlock had done that to him.

"Sorry," said Sherlock again, quietly, meaning it, because he deserved this, all of this, the anger and the blame.

He hadn't thought it was possible to miss John more when he was standing in front of him than he had in those two endless years away.

But he _was_ there. In their flat, seeming almost shy about it. He was there with the marks from last night visible on his skin and his newly shaven lip and when Sherlock tried teasing him gently about the mustache, he looked amused. So humor was allowed between them now.

Maybe running into a fire for him had done that.

John settled into his red chair and patted the arms and looked so right, sitting there.

"How are you feeling?" Sherlock asked him.

"A bit smoked." He didn't quite smile.

It had to mean something.

John was trying. He had to try, too. He was going to have to find better words, somehow. For sentiment. For his regret, seeing John's hurt. John was just as bad at the business of feelings as he was, and John had managed to find words. Looked Sherlock in the eyes, asked him how he could have lied and let him grieve for all that time. John was so much braver than he'd known. He could have left Sherlock on the floor of the Landmark and walked away, but he'd kept on trying to understand. Even though everything Sherlock said just hurt him more, he'd given Sherlock time to find the thing he needed to hear and Sherlock had failed to deduce what that was. Had failed John, miserably.

He had no idea how to make this right.


	5. The Moon, Shining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And as Sherlock told him what he did and didn't know, and John had questioned and exclaimed and let him wonder aloud, it had happened again. In John's presence, the disordered ideas, information, memories, had ordered themselves suddenly.

Then John asked, "Last night--who did that? Is this something to do with the terrorist thing?"

And as Sherlock told him what he did and didn't know, and John questioned and exclaimed and let him wonder aloud, it had happened again. In John's presence, the disordered ideas, information, memories, ordered themselves suddenly into something of significance.

The rays of the sun are brilliant, but brutal. The moon reflects the light and makes it bearable, illuminates everything simply by being there.

"Oh," he said, staring at the charts. "That's it."

_That's why I need him. He's the moon._

John said, "What?"

"Just a mental note. Give me your laptop. We have to speak with Howard."

"Who?"

"The train guy."

 

Which led to Sherlock and John trapped in the missing Tube compartment in a forgotten part of the Underground, facing down another bomb. Which Sherlock had just disarmed without telling John. He could tell John. There was no Moriarty this time to uncover Sherlock's heart, expose him to John without his consent. It was his choice. He could tell him now that they were safe, and they'd go home and--what? Just go on?

They couldn't go on like this. He had to make things right. How?

"I can't do it, John," he said. "I don't know how." _  
_

John stared, disbelieving. "What?"

 _Rectify the omission of actual words,_ he reminded himself.

"Forgive me. Please, John, forgive me for all the hurt I've caused you."

He let the tears come. He was allowed; supposedly they were about to die. Every time he'd laid bare his heart for John--had showed his gratitude, by the pool; his terror, near Baskerville; his dependence on John, after the terror; his grief, on the roof of St. Bart's--John had made him stop. John could never bear it. Seeing Sherlock so exposed unnerved him. So he hadn't told John he had turned off the bomb. And because John thought they might die, he was listening. Really listening.

"This is a trick," John hissed. "Another one of your bloody tricks."

John saw what he was doing. Of course he did. He was still managing to underestimate John, apparently. But--

"I wanted you not to be dead," John said, and suddenly his voice was wrecked and he was near weeping, too, for the first time since that first night, when Sherlock had stood stunned and then laughed helplessly as John swayed in grief.

Fascinating. Even though John had seen through Sherlock's game, his subconscious mind was responding to the underlying sincerity of the sentiment Sherlock was showing. Sherlock's shameless honesty was drawing an honest response from John.

He should have never let Mycroft convince him to lie. He should have offered John his trust from the start.

"Be careful what you wish for," Sherlock answered. _If I'd stayed away, you'd have never learned I lied and left you. You had her. You love her. You could have been happy. Do you wish I'd stayed away?_ "If I hadn't come back, you would still have a future, with Mary." He let a sob out. They were supposedly dying; a bit of drama was allowed.

"Look. I find it difficult, this sort of stuff," John pleaded.

"I know," he said softly. _He'll tell me to stop. He can't bear this._

John braced himself, then looked up and whispered, "You were the best and the wisest man that I have ever known."

Sherlock froze.

John didn't talk about Sherlock that way.

"Idiot," he'd say, and "Annoying git," and he meant it fondly, mostly. He praised Sherlock's work, his mind. But there was only once he'd spoken the way he was now, and he hadn't known Sherlock could hear.

John had stood by Sherlock's grave, trembling, and said, "You were the best man and the most _human_ human being I've ever known. I was so alone and I owe you so much."

_He doesn't lie about things that matter. Which means he still believes that. After everything I've done, he still thinks of me--like that. How?  
_

 

"So yes, of course I forgive you." John's eyes closed.

Sherlock stared. Not just heard, then, but forgiven, and still wanted, and still John's.

John still saw him.

The rush of sentiment was not unexpected, after everything. He found himself dizzy, and wanting to laugh. So he did, and let it get a bit ridiculous, to keep the game going, give John something to shout about-- "Your face!" he said. "I totally had you."

"I _knew_ it!" And John was shouting, outraged, incredulous, alight, vibrating with life. Starting to smile. "You knew how to turn it off. I'm definitely going to kill you."

"Please. Killing me?" said Sherlock. He was not afraid now. This man he knew. "That's so two years ago."

And then John was laughing.

Sherlock had done that to him.

The layers of loss and loneliness fell off and John was fully there. Shining.


End file.
